] project-open [ Open Source Enterprise Business Application

1. ]project-open[Open Source Enterprise Business Application Project Invoicing using ]project-open[ Version: 0.5Date: 14th Mai 2008Author: Frank Bergmannfrank.bergmann@project-open.com

2. The Challenge • Service organizations need to provide flexible responses to customer requirements • The scope and contents of projects may change during the project lifecycle • Projects may contain fixed-cost as well as variable cost phases. • It is difficult to distinguish billable hours from non-billable sales and warranty parts. Senior management may lose considerable time resolving this type of questions. • The customer may be “flexibly” mixing planned with already delivered work to be invoice • Difficult distinction between billable and non-billable time. • Partial invoicing at the end of project phases or milestones • Invoicing may depend on a lot of fuzzy information from different sources: • The initial quote and its rules • Verbal agreements between sales and the customer • Change requests incurred during the project execution • Timesheet information about planned, billable and logged hours • External costs of material and freelance project members • The initial quote and its rules • Verbal agreements between sales and the customer • Change requests incurred during the project execution • Timesheet information about planned, billable and logged hours • External costs of material and freelance project members

3. Complex Contract Structure Service companies frequently have to deal with complex contract structures. Variables: • Fixed-price vs. variable-price (based on time and material) or a mix of both. • The definition of “billable time” can be complex: • During sales: Presales time vs. consulting time • In the last project phase: Features vs. corrections. • During support: Paid support time vs. warranty time • During support: Issue fixing vs. user training • Contracts changes during the project: • Formal changes as “Change request” • Informal changes as part of negotiations between PM, key account and customer.

4. Invoicing with ]project-open[ The Customer Invoice ChangeRequest Specs Quote Order eMail eMail eMail The Project Sales / Planning Execution Milestone 2nd Phase Sign-Off Support PurchaseOrder Invoice Timesheet Loggingby Employees External Providers

5. The Project Sales / Planning Execution Milestone 2nd Phase Sign-Off Support How to Create an Invoice Create an invoice from Gantt chart task durations. ]po[ maintains a price list per customer. • ]project-open[ offers a wide range of options on how to create an invoice, taking advantage of all available information • ]project-open[ provides maximum flexibility in terms of how to combine all available information to create invoices. Invoice Create an invoice from timesheet information (actual hours logged by employees) Timesheet Invoice Quote Create an invoice from one or more quotes. Invoice Quote Quote Invoice Create an Invoice from “scratch” (manually entering quote lines)

6. Document Type Permissions • ]project-open[ allows to specify per profile who should be able to read or write certain financial documents. • The table at the left shows a typical configuration. • The configuration at the left implies a workflow between project managers (create quotes and purchase orders) with accounting (write invoices) • The configuration can be modified using ]project-open[ maintenance screens. Employees ProjectManagers Accounting Quote - read and create project’s Quotes read, create and modify everything read, create and modify everything DeliveryNote read and create project’s Delivery Notes - read project’s Invoice (but no right to create) read, create and modify everything Invoice - read and create project’s Purchase Orders read, create and modify everything PurchaseOrder - read, create and modify everything read project’s Provider Bills (but no right to create) Bill (ProviderInvoice) - TravelExpense read own expenses, create new travel expenses read project’s travel expenses read, create and modify everything read project’s timesheet costs TimesheetCost log hours (which creates timesheet cost items) read, create and modify everything

7. Decentralized Invoicing • The ]project-open[ workflow engine allows to formalize important processes, while other processes may be kept flexible. The Customer Invoice Quote Order DeliveryNote The Company Bill (ProviderInvoice) TravelExpense TimesheetCost PurchaseOrder Providers

8. Solution • ]project-open[ provides a single place to store and process both formalized and semi-formalized data including quotes, timesheet, documents, email traffic etc. • ]project-open[ has been designed for the level of flexibility needed by small and medium service organizations (3-300 employees). • ]project-open[ workflow engine can enforce certain policies such as order or sign-off phases in larger organizations • ]project-open[ includes wizards to create quotes and invoices from production information such as planned or spent hours • The ]project-open[ workflow engine allows to formalize important processes, while other processes may be kept flexible.

9. Process Overview • Sales & Quoting • Project Planning • Project Execution • Timesheet Logging • Project progress tracking • Project cost tracking

10. Quoting Options in ]project-open[ • Quoting using Project Plan: • Create a project schedule via GanttProject • Assign “materials” to tasks • Use the Timesheet Quoting Wizard to sum up the planned hours multiplied with the customer’s price list. • Repeating Project Structures: • Create a “new project from template” to create a copy of a previous project. • Complex Projects: • Write a quote using MS-Word, • Create a new ]po[ project in status “quoting” • Store the MS-Word in the ]po[ project’s Filestorage • Create a ]po[ quote document for financial tracking

11. Sales & Quoting • The Sales & Quoting phase starts during the first contact with the customer. • Deliverables: • A textual description of the scope of the project (MS-Word document) • A “quote” document as a baseline for the invoicing process • PO can keep track of potential projects and the size of the sales pipeline • A PO workflow can check the completeness of quote information before a “potential” project becomes executed. • PO allows to store unstructured information such as email, meeting and conversation protocols together with the project as a reference for the invoicing process.

12. Project Planning • The planning phase intents to specify the tasks to execute the project. It may overlap with the sales phase or start afterwards • Deliverables: • A detailed project plan consisting of a number of tasks • Each task consists of a number of “planned” and “billable” hours, apart from other project information

13. Project Planning • The planning phase intents to specify the tasks to execute the project. It may overlap with the sales phase or start afterwards • Deliverables: • A detailed project plan consisting of a number of tasks • Each task consists of a number of “planned” and “billable” hours, apart from other project information

14. Thanks for your attention ]project-open[ Ronda Sant Antonio 51, 1o 2a08011 Barcelona Spain Tel: +34 933 250 914 Cell: +34 609 953 751 Fax: +34 932 890 729 www.project-open.comwww.project-open.org

15. wastebasket